Strom Thurmond seniors help special needs students exercise

EDGEFIELD, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - Strom Thurmond high students are studying sports medicine while helping middle school special needs students exercise.

We asked the students, who do you think is helping whom more? One senior tells us that everyone involved benefits.

Laila Lanham, a senior and sports medicine student, says, “We help each other tremendously, we help them to grow and have fun. It helps us tremendously build our personality and our character.”

The students get a classroom, gym, and dance floor all in one.

Trey Sloan, a senior and sports medicine student, “We start with stretches to get them loose, then we’ll play happy and just let them dance however they want.”

Shelby Faust, sports medicine teacher at Strom Thurmond Career and Technical Center, says, “Sports medicine has three standards and is based off exercise benefits, the benefits of exercise, how it benefits the body, but also the mind and communication and all of that. So that’s what they’re learning through all of this.”

But it’s so much more than just that.

Whitney Martin, a self-contained moderate to severe special education teacher at Jet Middle School, says, “It gives them that opportunity to be with other teenagers and interact with them. So it means a lot to them and makes them feel special.”

It’s students helping students.

“I think it’s good for the high school students as well as my students, and I think they always leave seemingly happier and more upbeat and then when they come in,” Martin says.

As they bring smiles to each other’s faces.

Sloan says, “It means the world to be able to see them happy and realize how much people care about them. We enjoy it too, we all look forward to it.”

“Being in here with them is the best thing in the world. They have played a huge part in our lives, We’ve built a huge relationship with them we learned together and we are all growing together as one,” Lanham says.

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